Lucia didn’t know what had happened between Damon and Alex on the trip from her house to the hospital.
All she knew was that, when she got out of her car and went to meet them, something had changed.
Damon wasn’t completely different. He wasn’t embracing the whole notion of being involved with his father and his family, but something had happened.
It was obvious in the way he stood next to Alex, almost protectively. She heard it in the firm voice with which he spoke to the hospital staff, and in the gentle reassurance with which he took the boy down the hall to see his mother.
This was the way that Mr. Walter had always wanted and feared didn’t exist. This was a responsible, capable, caring man taking charge.
Lucia didn’t say a word. She just stood back and watched. She went with them down to see Julietta because Damon's expression included her when he said, ‘‘We want to see Mrs. Walter.’’
She did talk to Julietta, calmly and optimistically, because in his stepmother’s hospital room, Damon didn’t say much.
But he was there. He held Alex’s hand while Lucia talked to Julietta. He stood back next to Lucia and waited while Alex went up to his mother’s bed.
Julietta touched her son’s face and kissed him. She talked in a low, soft voice to him, explaining that the baby might be coming early and she had to wait here and see.
‘‘Can I stay, too?’’ Alex wanted to know.
Julietta smiled. ‘‘There’s only one bed in here. And Lucia says she’ll spend the night with you at home. That will be better than staying here. And then tomorrow we'll know if the baby is coming or not. If not, I can come home. Okay?”
Alex nibbled on his lip for a minute, then nodded. “I guess,” he said, then looked back over his shoulder. ‘‘Is Damon coming, too?’’ he asked nervously.
Standing beside him, Lucia could almost feel Damon's body stiffen at the little boy’s words. A fierce tension seemed almost to emanate from him.
But it wasn’t an angry tension. It was more like an intense, very personal vibration. A sort of force field. Magnetic. Almost without realizing it, Lucia drew closer.
Their arms brushed against each other. She felt Damon's fingers grip hers. His hand was cold and damp, the clasp of his hand, hard. She rubbed her thumb across his knuckle.
“Are you, Damon? Are you coming home with us this night?’’ Alex persisted.
"If you want me to," Damon answered monotonously.
Alex nodded solemnly. ‘‘I do.’’
It shouldn’t have reminded Lucia of a wedding. It was a four-year-old boy and his much older brother. But there was a sense of something sacramental about it. A vow.
A promise and she knew he was determined to keep it.
She gave Damon's hand a gentle squeeze and got a death grip in return.
She stifled a cry of pain.
‘‘Damon?’’ Julietta raised her voice, and Damon's gaze jerked up to meet hers. His stepmother smiled mistily at him.
‘‘Thank you." She smiled with tears of
gratitude coming out from her eyes.
**At the Walters mansion**
He was out of his flaming mind.
He shouldn’t be here! Couldn’t be here. Never in a million years would have believed he was here in his father’s house waiting while Alex put on his pajamas and got ready for bed.
But even as he thought it, he knew there was nowhere else he could be.
And Lucia knew that, too.
She watched him as carefully as she’d been watching Alex as if she really was his nanny, concerned for his welfare above all else.
After they’d talked to Julietta, whom they left resting at the hospital. Damon had taken Alex back out to the car, while Lucia stayed on a few minutes longer at Julietta’s request, getting an earful of the things Alex didn’t need to hear.
But only a few minutes later she hurried to meet them by the car, cheerful smile in place as she said, ‘‘All set for that picnic, you two?’’
Alex, who had been yawning and holding Damon's hand silently, brightened at once and answered for both of them. ‘‘Yep. I’m starved.”
Lucia didn’t even bother to warm the dinner, just served it cold to the three of them as they sat on a cloth Spread on the deck overlooking the pool.
Damon looked at it doubtfully but didn’t say anything. Lucia seemed to know what she was doing. And she proved it again because by serving it cold she got at least half a meal down Alex before he fell fast asleep on a chaise by the pool.
"You knew he was fading,’’ Damon said.
"There are signs. He’s had a hard day. You have, too," she added.
"How’s your head? And your leg? I haven’t even had time to ask.’’
He shrugged. "They’re alright.’’ He picked up his jacket and put it over the sleeping boy.
"It was...kind of you to stay.”
His mouth twisted wryly. "That’s me, kind.’’
"Don't belittle yourself,” Lucia said sharply. " I know how hard it was for you.”
No, you don’t, he wanted to say. But, oddly, he felt as if she really did know. As if she had been there with him all day, feeling what he felt, sharing his pain, halving it.
"Yeah,’’ he said, his voice low. He stared out across the pool, a turquoise gem, glowing from its underwater light.
He didn’t let himself look at her. If he did, he would see her mouth and remember their kisses. He would see her hair and remember its softness. He would see her body and remember its response.
His monster was responding even now.
He shoved himself awkwardly to his feet and bent to pick up the sleeping child. ‘‘I’ll carry Alex in. Get his bed ready, will you?’’
Lucia scrambled up as well and hurried into the house ahead of him. He gave her a good head start. He stood there on the deck by the pool, the warm weight of his small brother in his arms, and tried to divorce himself from the moment.
Think about Cornwall, he told himself. Think about Brian and Lisa, about Carruthers, about the life you want.
But tonight he wanted something else. Something he couldn’t have. Something he wouldn't let himself have.
He prayed he wouldn't want It tomorrow. And if he did?...
He wouldn’t let himself think about that.
“She wants me to do what?"
“Don’t shout. You’ll wake Alex,’’ Lucia cautioned him. They were in the living room of the main house. Damon had just put Alex in his bed and stood there looking down. at his little brother for a long moment.
Then, resolutely, he’d turned away, heading back for the living room, determined to get out now, before he did something he’d regret.
And now here Lucia was, telling him to do the one thing in the world he’d regret even more!
‘‘Call my father? You’re crazy!" He fumed. He paced. He glared. “You don’t mean it?’’
"Julietta means it. She asked me to ask you.”
"She didn’t ask me herself!”
"Because she felt awkward.”
“This is awkward!’’
"I know that. But it has to be done. Someone has to call him.”
Damon would have liked to have called his father every name in the book! How the hell could the old man go off and leave his wife when she was this close to having his child?
"You call him," he suggested, blankly.
Lucia shook her head. ‘‘I don’t think anyone would pay any attention to me. They’d pay attention to you, I'm nobody in this house, just a nanny."
"And you think he would pay attention to me? His irresponsible son?" He sneered.
“Maybe not. But they’d pay attention to Damon, the responsible man I saw take over at the hospital.”
Damon growled. He wanted to say something but he didn't have the right words to counter her truthful statement.
Lucia didn’t say anything as well.
He wished she would! It was easier to argue with someone than to argue with himself especially when he was losing!
‘‘He deserves not to be here,’’ he snapped at her. “He doesn’t have the sense to stay when she needs him, he deserves to miss it.’’
"But does Julietta deserve not to have his support?”
Damn her! Damn her gentle logic! Damn her confidence that he would come around and do the right thing!
He didn’t want to do the right thing! He wanted Mr. Walter, his father, to suffer.
But he didn’t want Julietta to suffer. It wasn’t her fault. And it wasn’t Alex’s fault. And the last thing Alex had murmured as Damon had put him in bed was, Dad…
‘‘Oh, hell! Alright.”
He snatched the phone off the hook and stalked out of the room. He’d find the old man if he had to fly to Athens and knock down the plane to get to him.
It just about came to that.
It was early morning in Athens and very late that night in New York when Damon finally bullied his way through enough flunkies to get to Adrianos, one of his father’s top aides.
"What’s your business with him?’’ they all asked.
“None of yours,’’ Damon snapped over and over.
He wasn’t telling any of them, there was no use doing so because they won't believe him. No one but the old man. He didn’t care if it took forever. The blistering he gave Adrianos brought his father, at last, to the phone.
Mr. Walter was indignant. ‘‘Ah, Damon, to what do I owe the pleasure of your phone call?"
His tone was surprisingly cheery ‘‘Is the nanny being too hard on you?’’
Damon swallowed his witty remarks and went straight to the point.
“Your wife’s in the hospital,” he said flatly. ‘“Get your ass home."
He’d done everything they’d asked of him. He’d taken Julietta to the hospital. He’d brought Alex to see her. He’d eaten a picnic with his brother. He’d put him to bed. He’d gritted his teeth and spent three hours tracking down his father. The old man was on his way home.
Damon was out of here, he could finally leave without guilt.
What more could anyone ask?
"What do you mean, I have to pick him up?’’ He stared at Lucia, horrified. Furious even.
‘‘I’m not going to get him! Let Thomas go get him.”
“It’s Thomas’s day off,’’ she reminded him gently.
"Then he can take an Uber."
"He can’t take an Uber."
“He can afford it!"
“It’s not a matter of affording it. It's that he needs Someone to meet him.’’
"Not me!’’
"Damon, your father sounded shattered when he called from London."
“He damned well ought to be!’’ Damon didn't want to back down on this one.
“I agree. But even he needs support,’’ Lucia went on firmly. "He needs his family there now.’’ She looked at him. “You.”
They glared at each other.
Damon raked his fingers through his hair. ‘‘You go get him then.’’
“I'm not family. And—’’ she forestalled his protest
"I need to stay with Alex. He didn’t sleep well. He was probably hungry before he slept in the middle of the night. He was tired.
Damon sighed in defeat, Damn You
Lucia Stones.
"""""
The man who got off the airplane that afternoon didn’t even look like his father.
If the gray-faced old man making his way into the terminal hadn’t said, ‘‘Damon?’’ in a shocked tone, Damon might have let him walk on by.
Mr. Walter seemed to have aged twenty years in the space of the week since he’d left. And he was astonished to see Damon there waiting for him.
‘‘Believe me, I wouldn’t be here,’’ Damon said before his father could comment, ‘‘if there had been anybody else.”
"Is she...?’’ Mr. Walter couldn’t even get the words out. He groped for something to hang onto, and Damon, without thinking, caught his father’s arm to support him.
‘‘She’s holding her own," he said gruffly. 'The contractions have stopped. I called the hospital before I came this morning.”
"Thank God.’’ The faintest color reappeared in his father's complexion. He swallowed and a tremor seemed to run through him. But then he straightened and pulled himself together.
Damon let go of his arm. "Come on. Let’s get going.”
The drive to East Hampton took two and a half hours. They made it in silence except for his father’s questions about Alex right after they left JFK.
“How is he? Is he alright?’’
Damon's jaw tightened. He didn’t take his eyes off the road, but he didn’t feel as if he could see it at all.
For a long minute, he couldn’t answer. He couldn’t get words past the thickening in his throat. At last, he nodded, and when he could speak, he said harshly, ‘‘Lucia has him, She’s good at what she does.’’
The look his father gave him was a hard and assessing look.
Right now, Damon didn’t care. Let the old man think whatever he wanted. Let him wonder about whatever he wanted. Damon deliberately flexed his fingers on the steering wheel and drove on.
If his father had more questions, he didn’t ask them. He did pull out a cellular phone once and called the hospital, his relief at being allowed to speak directly to Julietta was profound.
"Julietta, my love, how do you feel?’’
Damon's teeth clenched. Don’t play the devoted husband in front of me, old man. He didn’t want to hear it! He didn’t even really believe it.
But though he began by doubting his father’s sincerity, once the niceties were dealt with, and Mr. Walter would customarily have lapsed into his normal curt, businesslike manner, with Julietta he was not curt or businesslike at all.
His tone was soft, his questions gentle. This loving man, this agonized husband was truly his father?
This was his father?
Damon's hands strangled the steering wheel. He stepped down harder on the accelerator. His leg hurt from the continued demands of driving. He wanted to stretch it. Ease it. Kick something. Someone.
He thought he might explode.
They continued in silence. Damon drove straight to the hospital. It wasn’t until he’d pulled up out front and said,
"I'll take your gear to your place," his father spoke again.
Mr. Walter sighed just slightly and looked down at his hands before he turned his gaze to meet his son. ‘‘Damon'’ he said. His voice was as gentle as Damon had ever heard it when speaking his name.
He looked away.
"Damon." His father said again and didn’t move to get out until Damon had looked back at him.
"Thank you."
Not what he was expecting.